


This Burning Soul

by frankincense



Series: the broken ones [1]
Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Angst, M/M, Not, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-07-30
Updated: 2015-09-09
Packaged: 2018-04-12 03:18:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4463444
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/frankincense/pseuds/frankincense
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>harry burns it all</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Muffled chattering and laughter floats in through the half open window as Harry sits and watches strangers dancing and fighting and kissing in the streets below him. He often sits on his windowsill like this, the one that was built just wide enough for cushions and a cup of coffee to be balanced alongside the sleep softened boy without fear of an accident. He sometimes wonders who is more likely to fall, his mug or himself, and darker nights lead him to wonder which would be the greater loss. Tonight though he is calm. Small and quiet and peaceful in contrast to the drunken shouting he can hear outside his window. Sips of coffee warm his insides whilst the September breeze flutters around him, curls blowing gently against his face and reminding him they're getting slightly too long.

 The city has never really felt like a home to Harry. Moving somewhere because you're running from something never works as well as moving because you're running to something. Harry discovered this the hard way. It has been nearly three months in this new place, in this new life, and he hasn't settled yet.

 A particularly loud shout from outside catches Harry's attention, and his hazy eyes focus into the crowds below to locate the source. Amidst the groups of people tumbling out one of the pubs on Harry's street is a particularly rowdy boy - no, man - who's energy seems to be fizzing out of him and infecting those around him. The more Harry's eyes follow this bouncing figure, the more he comes to the conclusion that it was this man was the one who had shouted, and low and behold, another shout erupts from this tiny fizzing creature and an ache that had been beginning to ebb away sharpens again in Harry's chest. He knows that man, of course he does, and despite promising to never revisit those thoughts again, he lets himself remember just once.

 

*

 

Louis had never been calm. He was always loud and laughing and pure adrenaline. He was the sun to Harry's moon and Harry had been drawn to him with barely a say in the matter, as Louis beckoned him from across a dark sleazy bar one night only to leant in to shout "you know, you look a bit like a frog?" in his ear. They left together twenty minutes later, and Harry's hair had been a little messier ever since. Hell, all of Harry had been a little messier ever since, from his house to his head. Everything about them had been fast and unplanned and messy and that had been the charm. That's what had their friends rolling their eyes whenever they both turned up late with glazed eyes, or finished each other's sentences on even the most irrelevant topics, or argued loudly in taxis on the way home. They were loud and they were life and they were in love.

 In fact, there was one thing which calmed Louis, one time where his energy simmered into something quieter and softer and more tangible to Harry. When Louis had a pen in his hand, it was like his racing thoughts instead poured through his veins directly into empty journals, and in creating beauty he became a more delicate kind of beautiful. It was those nights in which he touched Harry with a lighter touch, as if he'd suddenly become breakable, and he'd say I love you with a softer voice, and he'd be slow and sweet and sunrise. Harry loved both Louis' with just as much desperation, but there was something about Louis when he was writing that had Harry caught, and they'd often spent many evenings in silence, with Louis' scribbling and Harry sipping coffee, eyes flitting over this boy with love and care and awe. Louis was resplendent and Harry was happy to bask in the light that he threw out when he'd glance up and catch Harry's eyes with a small smile, before looking down again.

 If Louis was beautiful when he was writing, then his writing was even more stunning. Harry would read everything. He'd read it seven times over, trying harder each time to memorise every single word. He'd sometimes lie awake long after kissing Louis goodnight, playing the lines over in his head, getting drunk off the poetry.

 They had a routine every time Louis finished writing something. He'd put down his pen, shut his journal and look up with a face that Harry knew meant he had nothing more. He'd be quiet for a minute, just studying Harry. Harry would count, every time, and after exactly sixty seconds he'd break the silence.

"Lou?"

"Hmm?"

"Can I...can I read?"

"I don't think so. Not this time."

Louis would then get up, walk to the kitchen with a cup of tea, and Harry would return to whatever book he was reading. It would usually be ten to fifteen minutes (but never more) before a small hand would tap on his shoulder and he'd look up.

"Harry....please can you read it for me? Tell me if you like it, yeah?"

"Of course, Lou. Whatever you want."

You see, when Louis was writing, it was the only time he was calm, yes, but it was also the only time he ever was vulnerable. This beacon of light dimmed for a few hours only to ask permission to shine again.

Harry loved every single thing he wrote, of course. Louis still asked every time.

 Maybe that's what went wrong. Harry loved too much. He loved everything, loved it all, loved so completely and purely and so much that there was nothing left when Louis decided that he was going to take that love and leave with it. Louis shone so bright that Harry forgot to find his own light and so he became a shadow, but when the light left he became nothing. Louis left Harry in the dark, and although he'd never feel the sun again, he'd forgiven him before he'd even gone.

 

*

 

On his windowsill, Harry remembers the one thing Louis never let him read, and he feels it burning in one of the unpacked boxes under his bed. Louis left all his writing with Harry, told him it wasn't worth anything anymore, but Harry never read them again. Couldn't bring himself to soak in Louis' words without being able to roll over and kiss him and hear them in his voice. The one thing Louis had never let Harry read was with Harry in this flat and he'd never read it, because Louis had told him not to. He hasn't decided if that makes him pathetic or not. Being loyal to someone who had left. Probably.

Another shout reminds him that the dawn is outside whilst he sits in dusk, and in trying not to watch Louis from the window, in trying not to burn in the flames, he finds his body moving towards the bed and in his hands are Louis' books, and the knowledge that his boy is in his city, on his very street no less, has him turning to the pages Louis never let him see, and in that moment he wishes he never had.

 

*

 

_Harry. The king, the prince, the boy with the crown of jewels and the eyes like stars. Harry. My fucking everything. Words are everything but nothing when it comes to the one thing that causes my blood to race faster through my veins and my hands to shake. It's like every particle in my body wants him, needs him. God, he's mine and I can't even think of a single sentence. I'm a writer, for fucks sake and to me Harry is silence because we don't need words._

_Right now he's here, next to me, and he has no idea that all I can think about in this moment in time is thirty years from now he'll still be next to me. Could I even stand to be anywhere else? God forbid he's ever gone for a day._

_He thinks I've never written for him. He'll read about astronauts and princes and knights and superheroes and not once has he ever seen himself in each good act, each heroic gesture. He's perfect but he's stupid. He's fucking stupid if he doesn't see that there's nothing I do in my waking hours that doesn't belong to him. God, my skin is inked with Harry. My writing is his and my house is his and my friends are his and soon, oh man. Soon my last name will be his, if he'll have it. He's taken everything else of mine. Please let him take me too._

_Harry. I love you. I love you so much that it's all I can think when I wake up with a face full of your curls and your smell and your stupid face. It's all I can think about when we fall back into the same bed covered in sweat and love and idiocy. You're everywhere and you're everything._

_Harry, my love. You don't know this is for you. You don't know that everything is for you. The earth was created for you, and so was I._

 

*

 

Harry stops reading. He doesn't care what else it says. He carries the book through to the kitchen and he throws it in the sink. Armfuls of books and papers and napkins from cafes with scribblings of "hi curly!" on are thrown in too. And finally, a match.

Harry burns everything Louis left him and Harry is burning with everything Louis never had the courage to fucking say to his face and the burns on his hands are nothing in comparison to the burning inside him.

Once the flames calm, Harry does too. Louis' shouting in the street has long gone, and Harry briefly allows himself to wonder if Louis had any idea he was in Harry's city, and what he would have done if he knew.

Harry burns but the fire has gone. The charred mess in the sink has left no words, and Harry has left no trace of Louis.

He's gone.

Finally, he can move on.


	2. The Goodbye

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The letter Louis never sent.

_"Harry._

_I know I used to call you Harold, but I think I've had that privilege revoked. Your name catches in my throat every time I try to say it, either way. My Haz._

_I was told by my therapist that writing to people from your past is supposed to help. I don't believe her at all, I mean, she doesn't even paint her toenails. You would never have trusted her. Anyway, this letter is supposed to heal wounds or whatever. "Burn bridges" she said.  All it's done so far is remind me that you're in my past and not in my present. God, Harry, you were my future. You were never meant to be someone I had to say goodbye to._

_I guess the reason I'm writing this, the reason I even have to, is because I know I fucked up. I do. I broke your heart, Harry. The thing is, people think that being the one who does the breaking is easier. It's not. It still fucking hurts even now. There's nothing I regret more in the world than that afternoon. At the time, I hated you for not sticking to the script that I'd prepared in my head, the one where it ended easily. You were never supposed to fight for me, you were supposed to just accept it. I wasn't supposed to cry, and you weren't supposed to scream at me. Now I realise I wish you'd fought a little harder. I knew that if you'd asked one more time for me to stop, for me to reconsider and to give us a chance, that I would have cracked. Maybe I wouldn't be writing this._

_I went to the lake yesterday. I don't know if it's a sign or something, but our names are still carved into the side of the jetty. It's probably not a sign, because instead of pointing it out to you, instead of kissing you and reminiscing about all the times we swam until our skin wrinkled, instead of all that I spent the rest of the afternoon throwing stones into the water, pretending each one was every stupid thing I ever did to hurt you._

_Okay, I'll admit it. I know I pretended that it didn't affect me. I tried so hard to act as if I'd forgotten you. Harry I woke up in the middle of the night aching for you. Please, if there's one thing I can say to you that you believe to be true, it's that I loved you so much it made me ill. You made me sick in all the best ways, made me feel so much I thought I was going to explode. I can't apologise enough for the times I pretended I didn't see you in the hallway. I hope you never felt like you meant nothing to me._

_We're not supposed to actually send these, so I guess you'll never read this. Maybe it's safe to admit then that I still love you. You were it for me. God, the things you did to me, Styles. I don't think there's ever a possibility that I will love anyone as fiercely as I loved you. I fucking hate you for it._

_Finally, I hope you're doing well. I've heard you are. I hope, I truly hope, that you find someone who can love you right. God, if you knew me now I'd show you. I hope there's someone out there who marries you and keeps you and buys you the right scented candles when you need to be reminded of home. I hope you fall in love so completely that it heals any cracks I might have caused._

_Who am I kidding, I'll fucking kill anyone who dares._

_I don't know where you are now but I'm there too._

_Someone you used to know,_

_Louis."_


End file.
